Phosphates and Phosphate Powder. 255 



cheese has now reached a point where the supply is sufficient 

 for home consumption, and an export trade must be established. 

 Quantities are, of course, sent to Alaska, but farmers are 

 looking for trade with Japan, China, the Philippine and 

 Hawaiian Islands. The average price paid by creameries for 

 butter fat was nd. per lb., and the average price paid by 

 dealers for butter of the highest grade was n^d. per lb. The 

 natural result of the increase in dairying, pursued as a business, 

 is the rapid improvement in the breeding of farm cattle. 



V Foreign Office Report, Annual Series, No. 2,858.] 



The success attending the use of crude phosphates, especially 

 Algerian phosphates, at the experimental 

 Crude Phosphates stations at Bremen, has given rise in many 

 and Thomas parts of Germany to the idea that such 

 Phosphate Powder, phosphates can be used as a complete 

 substitute for Thomas phosphate powder. 



This success has, however, been attained only because of the 

 peculiar nature of the soil — a peat exceptionally rich in humus — - 

 at Bremen, and the misapprehensions in this connection have 

 induced the Director of the Experimental Station to publish a 

 warning. In all publications dealing with Algerian phosphates 

 it has been distinctly stated that they can only be used as an 

 equivalent substitute for Thomas phosphate powders on such lands 

 (like the high peat soils after normal chalking) as contain fairly 

 large quantities of free humic acids. The effect of Algerian 

 phosphates on low-lowing peat meadows is so far behind that of 

 Thomas phosphate powder that it cannot be used as a substitute. 



[Deutsche Landwirtschaftliche Presse, March 29th, 1902.] 



The manufacture of beetroot sugar has been developed to a 

 very considerable extent in North and 



Beetroot Central Italy within the last few years. 

 Cultivation in ; 



Italv. l n logS only four factories with a pro- 



duction of about 3,830 tons were engaged, 

 but the number rose in 1901 to 33, with an estimated 

 production of about 73,660 tons. 



